Balatro Wins Game of the Year at GDC Awards 2025

Balatro won four major awards, including Game of the Year at the GDC Awards 2025 ceremony at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco.

Besides the Game of the Year title, the 2024 poker-themed roguelike deck-building game developed by LocalThunk and published by Playstack also won nominations for Best Debut, Best Design and an Innovation Award.

Full list of winners from the GDC Awards 2025:

• Game of the Year – Balatro
• Best Audio – Astro Bot
• Best Debut – Balatro
• Best Design – Balatro
• Best Narrative – Metaphor: ReFantazio
• Best Technology – Astro Bot
• Best Visual Art – Black Myth: Wukong
• Audience Award – Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
• Innovation Award – Balatro
• Lifetime Achievement Award – Sam Lake
• Pioneer Award – Lucas Pope
• Social Impact Award – Life is Strange: Double Exposure

It is worth noting that Balatro also won Best Indie Game and Breakthrough (Critic’s Choice) at the Golden Joystick Awards 2024, Best Independent Game, Best Debut Indie Game and Best Mobile Game at The Game Awards 2024, Outstanding Achievement for an Independent Game, Mobile Game of the Year and Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year at 28th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards.

On top of that, Balatro was nominated in Best Game, Debut Game,  Game Design and  New Intellectual Property categories at the upcoming 21st British Academy Games Awards (2025 BAFTA Games Awards).

Balatro is available on Windows and macOS PCs, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4|5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and smartphones, both Android and iOS.

Within its first eight hours, Balatro generated over $1 million in revenue, making it Playstack’s fastest-selling title at that time. By March 2024, sales surpassed 1 million copies, and by August 2024, they had reached 2 million. By December 2024, the game’s sales hit 3.5 million units, and by January 2025, the numbers had exceeded 5 million copies sold across all platforms.